PITTSBURGH — Pittsburgh City Council is expected to take a preliminary vote on raising parking fines, in hopes of raising more money to bolster the city's pension fund.

The city expects to raise $5.6 million this year from parking fines, and proponents of the increases say hiking the fines could raise at least $4 million more, and perhaps double that income.

The city has about one-third of the money it needs to pay almost $1 billion in pension obligations and is trying to raise about $15 million more per year to bolster that fund.

The city's lowest parking related fine is $10, compared to $39 in Seattle and $35 in New York City.

The legislation council is considering raising the fine for most run-of-the-mill offenses from $15 to $25.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama nominated Pittsburgh attorney David J. Hickton to serve as the U.S. Attorney for Western Pennsylvania.That announcement came from the White House on Thursday.Hickton is active in Democratic politics and helped found the Pittsburgh firm of Burns, White & Hickton in 1987.Robert Cessar, 48, has been acting U.S. Attorney in the district since Mary Beth Buchanan resigned in November.

PHILADELPHIA — A park official said a suspicious white substance found in a balloon near the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia on Thursday was harmless, but a few more tests still need to be run.Investigators are trying to identify the white powder, which was found inside the building that houses the Liberty Bell.Jane Cowley, a spokeswoman for Independence National Historical Park, said preliminary tests determined the material was not hazardous.The Liberty Bell Center and part of a street next to it were evacuated.A guard found the balloon inside the visitors entrance to the Liberty Bell Center on Thursday afternoon.

ALLENTOWN — A teenager is suing a district after her principal confiscated her cell phone, found nude images on it and turned the phone over to prosecutors.The federal suit says Tunkhannock Area High School Principal Gregory Ellsworth illegally searched the 17-year-old student's cell phone after the device was confiscated by a teacher in January 2009. The phone contained racy images the plaintiff had taken of herself.The suit says Ellsworth turned the phone over to the Wyoming County district attorney, who allegedly threatened to file felony charges against the teen unless she took a class on sexual violence.The student seeks damages against Ellsworth, the school district, prosecutors and a detective. The suit was filed Thursday.

PITTSBURGH — A plumbing company filed a federal lawsuit over alleged "cybersquatting" that directed people who searched for the company's name online to a competitor's website.Ernie Fagnelli has a website, Fagnelliplumbing.com, for his Pittsburgh-based business, but said his competitor bought the rights to a "confusingly similar" shorter domain name, fagnelli.com.Fagnelli's attorney sent a cease-and-desist letter to Gillece Services, the larger competitor, asking it to surrender the domain name and stop directing people who click on fagnelli.com to Gillece's website.Gillece on May 4 stopped using the domain name to redirect Internet traffic to its website, but has refused to surrender the domain name.